


Owls and Bats Actually Can Get Along

by FoxOnPie



Series: A Parliament of Owls [2]
Category: Batgirl (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU, DCU (Comics), The Owl House (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, Crossover, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, F/F, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-23
Updated: 2020-11-23
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:29:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27686959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FoxOnPie/pseuds/FoxOnPie
Summary: Cassandra Cain just wanted to spend the summer working out, walking around Gotham City, and putting the finishing touches on her one-man show. Instead, she ended up in another dimension to make sure her little sister doesn't get killed while trying to become a witch. All in all, it was a decent tradeoff.
Relationships: Amity Blight/Luz Noceda, Artemis of Bana-Mighdall/Jason Todd, Diana (Wonder Woman)/Bruce Wayne, Emira Blight/Viney, Other Relationship Tags to Be Added, Stephanie Brown/Cassandra Cain
Series: A Parliament of Owls [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1988263
Comments: 4
Kudos: 44





	Owls and Bats Actually Can Get Along

On the one hand, Cassandra couldn't help but feel like Luz had brought this upon herself. The whole family, that being their mother and herself, had told her that bringing a live firework and snakes that hadn't been properly defanged to school would only end badly, but Luz assured them that she would have it all under control, that even if things went bad, it wouldn't be anything that couldn't easily be handled. Sure enough, her theater class with Mr. Karlo was interrupted by the students of Luz's English class screaming that snakes were going to poison them and that the weird girl was going to blow up their corpses to hide the evidence. Cassandra awkwardly excused herself and helped Luz round up all of the snakes that had gotten loose, a number far larger than she had thought, but the damage was already done. Luz had been called to the principal's office, their mother had to leave work to talk about it, and Cassandra was using her lunch period to wait for them to be done.

On the other hand, Luz was still her adorable little sister, and seeing her get in trouble like this always made her sick to her stomach. She knew more than anyone that her quirkiness had a habit of getting out of hand, but Luz never meant any harm by it, only ever wanting to have fun and let other people tag along for the ride. That wasn't worth being demonized and ostracized over, yet she knew that they were going to rake her over the coals like they always did, and all she could do was sit and wait for the end result. It was frustrating, for lack of a better word in her limited vocabulary.

"Come on, I'm sure it'll be fine, Cass." The only solace to the unbearable waiting she was subjecting herself to was that Stephanie was also free to talk and used that freedom to talk to her.

"It won't be fine. This has happened too much," Cassandra said.

"Wait, this is the fourth time she's caused a panic? What were the first three times?" Stephanie asked.

"School play. Science class. Cheerleading."

"Oh yeah, those were things that happened, weren't they? They weren't even that bad, though. You salvaged the play with your awesome acting skills, LuLu didn't need to be a cheerleader if they didn't want you to be a cheerleader, anyway, and the griffin was, um—Yeah, sorry, I don't have a defense for that one. That was just weird."

"I know. That's bad." Cassandra felt herself sliding down the bench, but she did nothing to keep herself upright. She was hardly in the mood for proper posture.

"But hey! There are only a few weeks left in the school year, so they'll probably be chill and not even bother with expelling her, right?"

"Expelled?"

"Oh, you weren't thinking about that, were you?" Cassandra slid down even lower and cared about it even less. "E-Even still, it's totally gonna be fine, I just know it! If I can believe that, then you can believe it, too!"

"I guess."

"You better, now smile big for me the way I love to see." Cassandra sat up and did just that. Based on how Stephanie was smiling back at her, it appeared that practicing in the mirror was paying off well. "Yeah, that's a _way_ better look on you! Oh, I gotta go back to work before Mr. Wayne gets mad, but we're talking again tonight."

"Summer, too."

"Yep, every day from the other half of my bed. Love you, bye, and say hi to LuLu for me!" Cassandra repeated the sentiment and Stephanie blew her a kiss before ending their video chat. Just as Cassandra was pocketing her phone, Luz and their mother stepped out of the principal's office, both looking about as upset as Cassandra expected them to look.

"Were you expelled?" Cassandra asked.

"What? No, it wasn't _that_ bad. I do have to take the snakes back to the pet store, though," Luz said. Cassandra could easily live with that, but for Luz's sake, she would pretend that she was also upset about the loss of the snakes. "I also have to go to jail, so there's that." Even though Cassandra was able to tell that she was lying, hearing those words come out of Luz's mouth and be directly associated with her still hurt, either way.

"It's _not_ jail, Luz; the brochure is very explicit about that," Camila said. As if sensing that Cassandra would be confused by the statement, Camila pulled out the aforementioned brochure and handed it to her. It was for something called "Reality Check Camp", a camp that was technically a summer camp largely because it was active in the summer. Going through the brochure, Cassandra could see that Luz was going to be spending her summer doing things like balancing checkbooks, appreciating public radio, and coming to terms with the idea that Batman isn't a good role model.

"This isn't fun," Cassandra said, handing the brochure back to Camila.

"That's sort of the point, _Mija_."

"Luz likes to have fun."

"And that's sort of the problem."

"Luz is a problem?" Camila immediately shot down the suggestion in a panic, the rejection of the idea made even bigger when Luz looked up at her for a desperate answer.

"Luz, there is nothing wrong with you, I never once thought that, but you need to learn how to reign it in. Just because we live in a weird world doesn't mean you can do weird things all the time, and I need you to learn how to accept that. Please tell me you understand."

"Yeah, I get it," Luz said. Cassandra could tell that she was lying, and she felt like that would be the case even if she didn't have her eyes. Either way, Camila either didn't notice or pretended not to notice, kissed the top of Luz's head, and told the both of them that she'd see them at home before walking off.

"Want me to go with you?" Cassandra asked when their mother was out of sight.

"No. I mean, yeah, having you with me would probably be the only way I'd get to have any fun, but you're spending the summer in Gotham with Steph, right? I can't make you give that up just to keep me company." Cassandra shook her head and took Luz's hand into her own.

"It's okay."

"Nope. Don't care if you think so, there's no reason we both have to suffer. Just try and have enough fun for the both of us, okay? And get me Wonder Girl's autograph if you can, because that would make three months of garbage just fade away in an instant, you know?"

"I know." It wasn't a promise that she would get Wonder Girl's autograph for her, but she was going to the right city for it, and if it would make Luz happy, then she'd do everything in her power to try and make it happen.

"I wanna blow off a lot of steam. Can we do JKD when we get home? Maybe transition into baritsu?" Cassandra nodded at the request, though she would have done that for anything Luz might have been up for. As she thought about that, the school bell rang, and Luz, in a very Luz-like move, instigated a hug before she could even think about how they needed to get to their next classes.

" _Te quiero_ ," Cassandra said.

" _Wo ai ni_ ," Luz said back to her. After that, the two finally separated and went about their respective business, even though Cassandra knew that they had nothing to look forward to for the rest of the day and little to look forward to in the upcoming weeks.

They'd just have to try and make the best of it, like they always did.  


* * *

The last few weeks of school came and went, Cassandra and Luz caring as little about them as they expected themselves to. Very appropriately for a place as dreadfully boring as Reality Check Camp, they started up on the very first day of summer vacation, not even humoring Luz with the idea that she could have any amount of fun before being stuck with them. Cassandra never stopped feeling upset that she couldn't do anything about Luz's situation, and it seemed that Luz picked up on that when she told her that she didn't need to wait for the bus with her. Cassandra wanted to object, but she had yet to get in her morning workout and she still needed to pack for her own bus into Gotham, so she obliged to letting Luz be alone with her thoughts while she got a few reps in on the salmon ladder and thought about whether or not she should bring some of Camila's cooking with her for Stephanie or just try and replicate it from scratch when she got there; she had gotten pretty good at that if she didn't say so, herself.

As Cassandra finished one set and got ready to start on another, she caught sight of Luz running after what appeared to be an owl holding a bag of garbage in its beak. That seemed like something she would be remiss to ignore, so she ran out of the house with the salmon bar ladder still in hand and went after Luz, eventually catching and stopping her outside an abandoned cabin in the woods near their house.

"Mom said we can't have pets," Cassandra said as the owl hopped into the cabin.

"I don't want that tiny trash thief for a pet, Cass! It stole my _Azura_ book!" Luz said. The severity of the situation immediately sunk in.

"Let's attack." They nodded at each other and ran in after the owl. They stepped inside just as it jumped through a floating door with a giant eyeball bulging out from it. Looking at something so blatantly bizarre made Cassandra feel that Luz would be better off just buying a new copy of the book, but Luz had already run through the door, so it was clearly out of her hands. Shrugging her shoulders a bit, Cassandra followed Luz's lead through the door and almost took a step back when she saw that the two of them had somehow ended up inside some sort of tent lined with a random assortment of items undoubtedly pilfered from other people; she remembered hearing about a new member of Young Justice named Sideways who could create portals between places, so her immediate thought was that something like that was happening.

"Here I thought we had a lot of weird stuff, but I guess that owl has us beat," Luz said while holding up a cloak that was vaguely reminiscent of Doctor Fate. Cassandra forced it out of her hands for safety reasons and they quietly stepped over to the edge of the tent. The owl had met up with an old woman in a red dress with pointed ears who was rooting through the bag of garbage and alternating between throwing items out and putting it on the table in front of her with a weird price tag. It didn't take long for her to get to Luz's copy of _The Good Witch Azura_ , but rather than throw it out, she had decided to set it ablaze with a candle.

Without skipping a beat, Luz jumped out and sent the old woman crashing to the ground with a sweeping kick and Cassandra jumped on top of her with the salmon ladder bar at her neck. She wouldn't go any farther with it than that, but the old woman had no way of knowing that, and that was good for them.

"Give it back," Cassandra said.

"Hello to you, too, I guess," the old woman said, not looking nervous in the slightest. Cassandra thought that was going on, anyway; she was a little hard to read, for some reason.

"Give it back."

"You mean this dumb book your friend is trying to pry out of my fingers?" Luz was, indeed, trying and failing to remove her book from the old woman's grip.

"It's not dumb, and any points of criticism are quickly dealt with in the next book, so give it back!" Luz said in the midst of her struggling.

"Give it back," Cassandra said for a third time.

"Yeah, not how that works; stealer's keepers, loser's weepers, you know the old saying," the old woman said. A quick shake of the head from Luz told Cassandra that that wasn't, in fact, a real saying, and when she looked back down at the old woman, a yellow circle of light had appeared near her hand, and from it came a laser beam that knocked Cassandra off of the old woman and onto her table. Based on that, it was clear that she was someone capable of using magic.

Or a robot. One of those two.

"You're a witch! Or a robot! One of those two!" Luz said, throwing a punch at the old woman that failed on account of her making a translucent owl appear that absorbed the blow as if it were made out of some sort of spongy material, the owl then exploding in a burst of light that knocked Luz back.

"Not only am I the first one," the old woman said, dusting herself off as she stood up, "but I'm the greatest one you're ever going to meet, so you two better go back where you came from before—" Luz interrupted the old woman with a palm strike to her stomach that pushed her back just far enough for Cassandra to throw her into a suplex, one that strong enough to make her drop the book.

"That's for being rude!" Luz stuck her tongue out and scooped the book up into her arms with a smile. Cassandra let go of the old woman and started dragging Luz back to the magic door, only to watch it close and fold up into a briefcase of some sort, and then the briefcase and everything in the tent flew past them and was wrapped up in a blanket that, logically, shouldn't have been able to contain all of it. Magic truly was something else.

"I'll be the first to admit that this is a very new and bizarre experience, but all you've really accomplished is bugging me," the old woman, now holding a staff with an ornament resembling the small owl, said when they turned back to her. "This whole thing we're doing used to just be about business, but now it's a matter of pride, and there's no way the almighty Owl Lady can just let some random human and her half-naked friend get the better of her and keep earning her keep!"

_Half-naked?_ Cassandra thought. After a few seconds of that, Cassandra looked down at herself and realized that in her haste to go after Luz, she neglected to notice that she was still in her workout clothes when she left the house, which meant that she had been doing all of her fighting in a sweat-drenched tank top and pair of spandex shorts.

"I mean, I didn't want to say anything, but, yeah," Luz said, the words appearing hard for her to muster.

"This isn't half," was all Cassandra had to say about that.

"Whatever percentage, then!" the Owl Lady shouted as she spun her staff around. A much larger circle of light appeared that fired a stream of flames at them. Cassandra tossed Luz into the air while she rolled out of the way of the attack and turned it into a leap at the Owl Lady. Cassandra saw that the Owl Lady was going to throw up her staff to block, so she threw up her legs and used the staff as a springboard to launch herself over the Owl Lady. The second Cassandra hit the ground, Luz fully descended into a landing at the Owl Lady's side, upon which she grabbed the Owl Lady's arm and flipped her over her shoulder, the move only failing because the wings of her staff's ornament suddenly folded out and pushed out with enough force to break free of Luz's grip.

If she had just flown off into the sky to not be seen again, that would have been the end of it, but instead, she landed back down and made a portion of the ground rise up into the shape of an elongated owl of some sort that shot out at Luz. Cassandra couldn't have that, so she picked the salmon ladder rod back up and threw it like a javelin at the disgusting thing, doing so with enough force to tear right through it and shatter it to bits. The rod kept flying until it crashed into the cart of a nearby cabbage merchant; she didn't intend for that to happen, and she hoped the cabbages were okay.

"Huh. Didn't expect that." As the Owl Lady stood still in confusion, Cassandra ran to the remains of the cabbage cart, retrieved the rod, and gave a swing that was parried by her staff. A second swing was also parried, and before she could go for a third, Luz jumped into the fray just to be jabbed in the face with the top of her staff. Cassandra didn't like seeing that, she didn't like that it was the Owl Lady doing it, and in her frustration, she swung higher than she had meant to swing and swung at the Owl Lady's neck.

[The Owl Lady's head made a series of plopping sounds as it hit the ground, and with each plop, Cassandra felt the world around her break a little more.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDhPsYeK-jU)

_I did that. I did that. I did that. I did that!_ Cassandra thought. _I didn't want to do that. She seemed tough, so why did that happen? That wasn't supposed to happen, so why did it happen? I've been good for so long, yet this still happened. Was that wrong? Was I still bad this whole time?_

All the noise around Cassandra disappeared into nothing, save for her own hyperventilating. She had had a light breakfast that morning, yet she felt like she was about to vomit a week's worth of food. Everything felt like it was going dark around her, and even though she knew that she was still in whatever world she was in, whenever she thought about her surroundings, all she could think was that she was back in the bookie's office in Macau, as if she were an eight-year-old child all over again.

"Cass!" Then it all stopped. It all stopped when a voice she loved broke through the chaos, when a pair of scrawny arms she was all too familiar with wrapped around her in an all too familiar way. All of a sudden, light had returned to her eyes.

"Cass, are you with me?" Luz asked. Cassandra didn't have a concrete answer for that, but she nodded her head, regardless. "Oh, _Xiètiānxièdì_! Eda, she's okay!"

"Ah, good to hear." Cassandra turned to see the Owl Lady—Eda, rather—in front of her. All three of them also appeared to be flying through the air on Eda's staff across above monstrous individuals and the skeletal remains of some sort of giant, inhuman creature that was somehow housing its own vibrant ecosystem.

"You're not dead," Cassandra stated.

"Hey, it'll take a lot more than a blow to the neck to kill me." Immediately after that, Eda pulled her head off of her body and swung it around for a bit before putting it back on.

"Look, see? She can do that with all of her body parts, so you didn't kill her, you just banged her up a little, okay?"

" _Lo siento, bruja. Lo siento_ ," Cassandra said. Luz started holding her even tighter.

"It's okay. She's okay, I'm okay, and more importantly, you're okay. Okay?" All Cassandra could do was nod at that, and at the end of it all, it was all she needed to do.  


* * *

As the three of them descended into a forest on the outskirts of the town they were just in, Cassandra was filled in on everything she had missed while having her panic attack. The fighting had stopped due to a combination of the Owl Lady—real identity notorious criminal Eda Clawthorne—showing concern for Cassandra's wellbeing and both her and Luz wanting to get away from the Emperor's Coven, the police force of their current location. Said current location was the Boiling Isles, a witch settlement within the alternate dimension of the Demon Realm; Cassandra couldn't help but feel that a name like that didn't narrow things down that much, but it wasn't that big a deal.

"The second we get back to my place, I'm gonna lie down for a while and sleep off all of that tiny violence you inflicted upon me, and after that, we can talk about getting you two home," Eda said, snapping a crick out of her neck. If it was up to Cassandra, however, the order of those events would be swapped without hesitation. "Seriously, where'd you learn how to hit like that?"

"From her," Luz said, pointing a thumb at Cassandra.

"Okay, where did _she_ learn to hit like that?"

"Lots of people," Cassandra said, and that was all she wanted to say about that to a person she had just met and still had a mostly negative opinion about.

"All right, then. Keep your secrets. Still, if I knew a couple of human kids could hit like that, I probably wouldn't have held back as much as I did." Luz laughed off the claim, but Cassandra wasn't sure if she could do the same. "Okay, we're here." "Here" turned out to be a large white house with blue roofing and a stained glass window in the shape of the same eye on the door Eda was in control of, and behind the house was a stone tower that looked ready to fall apart at any second.

"Seems appropriate," Cassandra said.

"You ever try getting a bank loan as a wanted criminal? It ain't easy."

"Don't be a criminal."

"Nah, this is more fun." Cassandra did not agree with that.

"Still, if you're really a super wanted criminal, shouldn't you be living somewhere more hidden like a cave?" Luz asked.

"Caves get too musty too fast. Besides, I've got a state-of-the-art defense system that'll protect me from anyone who comes by."

"Hoot-hoot! What's the password?" The one who said that was the owl-shaped fixture on the front door, having magically stretched out to get near the three of them. Cassandra immediately punched it in the face. "Ow! You don't play nice!"

"Cass, why did you do that?" Luz said.

"Instinct. He seemed dangerous. And gross," Cassandra said, her hand still balled up in a fist.

"The last one, maybe, but that's still no reason to punch random bird tubes." Luz started petting the thing's head, only to retract her hand after about two seconds. "Ew, why are you so slimy?"

"I don't tell you how to live your life, hoot!" the bird tube said.

"Hooty, I am not in the mood for this, so just let us in," Eda said while pinching the bridge of her nose. With a pout on his weird face, Hooty receded back into the door and it swung open without any prompting. The three stepped inside and Eda snapped her fingers, causing a series of candles to spontaneously light up and show a room littered with what had to be a variety of magical artifacts. "Welcome to the Owl House. What do you think?"

"Dirty," Cassandra said.

"But in a quaint sort of way," Luz said in an overcompensating tone, to which Cassandra merely shrugged.

"Hey, if I give you some new clothes so you won't be walking around in just your skivvies, will you lighten up a little?" Eda asked.

"Did you steal them?" Cassandra asked. She knew the answer before Eda could throw out her lie.

"Come on, Cass, Eda's not all that bad," Luz said. "She was really scared when you started freaking out before, so I think she can be nice when she puts her mind to it. Plus, we were sort of the ones who escalated things to violence, and I already got my book back, so won't it be easier to just call a truce?" Luz was staring at her with the kind of big eyes she always wore when she wanted Cassandra to concede to her; today was yet another occasion where the look succeeded in what it was designed to do, and Cassandra nodded at Luz's request.

"Okay, great. If you got any complaints about my fashion sense, keep 'em to yourself," Eda said as she spun her staff around in a circle. A circle of light appeared above Cassandra before floating down her body and enveloping her in light. When the light faded, Cassandra's outfit had changed into a purple and white striped shirt, a green jacket, black pants, white sneakers, and an eggplant-colored beanie that Stephanie probably would have loved.

"It's nice," Cassandra said.

"Thanks. Really feeling the love here."

"You should be; a comment like that is pretty high praise from Cass, and you definitely earned it because she looks so cool in that!" Luz said. That earned a nod of the head from Cassandra.

"Okay, what's with all the noise? The King of Demons does not need his relaxation time interrupted by such frivolities!" Into the room stepped some sort of talking bipedal animal with an exposed horned skull and a duck-print bath towel wrapped around his waist. It only took two seconds for Luz to scoop him up in her arms.

" _Ay, que lindo_! Eda, he's so cute! Cass, look how cute he is!" Luz said, squeezing him tight in spite of his protests.

"Stop it! This is not how the King of Demons deserves to be treated!" He kept trying to get out of Luz's grip to no avail, only escaping thanks to Cassandra taking him from Luz. "Well, good to know at least one of you knows how to show proper—" Cassandra squeezed him just as tightly as Luz, possibly even more than her.

"He's fluffy," Cassandra said, petting his head as he failed to escape her grasp.

"Don't punish me for the sins of my forebearers! I beg you!" He said that, but Cassandra still wouldn't let go. It took the surprisingly nimble fingers of Eda for him to escape her grasp and end up on the floor, much to her own dismay.

"Okay, as fun as that was to watch, leave King alone. He's a vital part in what I'm having you two do for me if you want to get home," Eda said.

"We're finally doing it? All right!" King said. "Hey, if you two are really humans, then that monster strength of yours must be because you're some of those superhero people they all love. By the way, do you guys run around in those colored undies because it gives you your powers or because it's some kind of fashion statement? Eda never tells me how it worked with her family."

"We're actually not superheroes, just a couple of girls who value martial arts and physical fitness, but it varies from person to person. Blue Beetle, for example, he—Wait, what? Eda, you've got superheroes in your family?" Luz asked, her eyes metaphorically sparkling to a degree that it might as well have been literal.

"What? No, that's not what I said," Eda said. "I think some people in my family have had some weird involvement with some weirdos before, but the only real superhero-type person was my great-grandmother. She was living on Earth a little under a century ago and got involved with some bunch of guys called the, um, Justice Friends? Justice Pals? They were all fighting this guy with a funny moustache—"

"Justice Society," Cassandra said. Eda snapped in her direction, and Luz let out a squeal.

"I can't believe your great-grandmother was in the Justice Society! Who was she? Please tell me you still remember!" Luz said.

"Maybe? Been a while since I thought about her," Eda said. "If I remember right, I think the reason she went to Earth at all is that she just sprouted wings out of her back one day; started spouting stuff about this 'Egypt' place, too. I think she started swinging around some fancy mace—"

"Your great-grandmother was a Hawkgirl?"

"Yeah, that's it." Luz let out a squeal even louder than the previous one. "And with that, I'm taking my nap. Goodbye." While Luz jumped around in excitement over what she had just learned, Cassandra stepped over to Eda and grabbed the end of her hair.

"Plan," Cassandra said.

"Ugh, fine. You see King? The little guy doing his best to not get trampled by your sister's bad dancing? He was once a powerful demon lord until the day his crown was stolen and he was drained of all his power. That crown is currently being held by Warden Wrath at the Conformatorium along with other contraband behind a barrier that blocks out everything with even the smallest amount of magical power. That's where you and your sister come in with all your non-magical juices and junk."

"Gross."

"Your feelings on the matter don't matter. Point is if you want to go home, then you have to help us get that crown back. Sounds fair, right?" Given what little Cassandra knew about Eda, it should have been easy for the answer to that question to be a resounding "No." However, Eda held all the cards in the situation, and she didn't want to risk Luz's safety by testing out her claim that she was holding back. Plus, with how much Luz was tormenting King with her smothering, it was hard for Cassandra to imagine that getting the crown would turn him into any sort of legitimate danger.

"Okay," was all Cassandra said when she finished weighing the options.

"Great. I'm gonna take that nap, and then we'll get a move on." Eda took one step forward before falling face-first into the floor and immediately going to sleep.

"Was she supposed to do that?" Luz asked while holding King.

"Beats me. She's probably fine, though," King said, seemingly accepting Luz's actions, begrudgingly.

Cassandra couldn't help but wonder if she had miscalculated at some point.  


* * *

The Conformatorium was about a dreary a place that Cassandra could imagine a place with that name would look like. It was a massive stone tower surrounded by an ominous stone structure and rows upon rows of giant teeth sticking out of rotting gums. Cassandra understood that these people decided to establish a society in the rotting carcass of a giant monster for some reason, but that didn't mean they had to lean into the idea of making everything look terrifying. What made it worse was how an out of nowhere clap of thunder clearly rattled Luz's nerves a little, and anything that could do that wasn't anything she could find herself enjoying.

"You sure are popular for the wrong reasons, Eda," Luz said, taking note of a wanted poster for her listing a one trillion Snail bounty.

"Be a better person," Cassandra said.

"Nah, that doesn't seem too fun to me," Eda said; it seemed like she was perfectly aware of exactly how Cassandra would take hearing something like that.

"If you're gonna hang with us, you gotta be more open to crime like your sister," King said.

"Please don't phrase it like that," Luz said, Cassandra wholeheartedly agreeing with the sentiment.

"Yeah, whatever, back to the mission. You, me, and Cassandra will sneak up the tower while Eda makes sure the warden is distracted."

"I'm going with Eda," Cassandra said, stepping over to her for added emphasis.

"Well, would you look at that? Give the girl some new duds, and she does a complete one-eighty on me," Eda said.

"Don't trust you."

"Well, maybe more of a ninety."

"Come on, Cass, what do you think Eda's gonna do? Use us as bait to distract the guards and leave us to die once she has what she wants?" Luz asked, to which Cassandra simply shrugged her shoulders. Luz started pouting, and while Cassandra understood why she was doing it, she'd be hard-pressed to agree with it.

"Okay, maybe, like, sixty-three, or something. Still, if I'm that untrustworthy in your eyes, then by all means, tag along to keep me in line. If you can, of course."

"I can," Cassandra said, adamant with her affirmation.

"Cass, I'm all for this, but please, please, _please_ try and play nice," Luz said, drawing a smirk from Eda. "Don't give me that. Just because I don't want Cass to cause problems doesn't mean I completely trust you. Why do you think I'm okay with this?" That time, it was Cassandra's turn to smile.

"Jeez, you take one nauseating book and suddenly you're public enemy number one on two worlds," Eda said.

"Maybe number five for me, but the point still stands." Cassandra still found herself smiling.

"Yeah, yeah, let's just get a move on." Eda pulled her staff out of her hair, of all places, and slammed it against the ground, summoning a large circle of hard-light that lifted Luz and King into the air.

"See you in a few, Cass!" Luz said, waving as she was lifted higher and higher up off the ground. Cassandra waved back at Luz and kept waving as she climbed onto Eda's staff and let her carry them into the air past Luz and King. Luz and King were deposited through a window high off the ground while Eda landed in one higher up the tower that deposited them into a large office of sorts. Eda pulled Cassandra behind a large bookshelf, and before she could inquire further, she heard the sound of a pencil dropping onto wood.

"What was that?" Peeking around the corner, Cassandra saw a large man in a plague mask stepping away from what she assumed to be a mahogany desk. He lumbered around the room like some sort of beast, the room shaking a little with each step as he looked around for something Cassandra hoped he wouldn't find. He nearly turned over toward the bookshelf, but then he turned around and went back to his desk, muttering something about spending too much time in front of the crystal ball.

"Warden Wrath?" Cassandra whispered. Eda nodded without a word, and Cassandra watched Warden Wrath go back to his paperwork for a few minutes.

"Okay, that's the form for getting new Ace of Winchesters for tomorrow's death by firing squad, that's the form for putting the Nth. Metal smugglers into the _kodoku_ pit, and that's the form for tar and feathering those political dissenters for having a difference of opinion," Warden Wrath said. Cassandra couldn't help but feel that something sounded off about a lot of that. "Well, that's all the paperwork that was backed up, and my shift isn't over yet. Might as well go see if any of the inmates are doing anything worth being tortured over." Warden Wrath stepped away from his desk and walked out of the office while whistling a jaunty tune.

From what little Cassandra could read of his body language, the idea of torturing someone just to pass time actually delighted him.

"Torturing people makes him happy," Cassandra said as she and Eda stepped away from the bookshelf.

"You don't get to be warden of a place called the 'Conformatorium' by being the kind of guy who believes that time outs work as capital punishment," Eda said.

"They don't deserve that. Even the bad ones."

"You better not be thinking I'm the exception to that." Cassandra furiously shook her head. "Good. I'm not gonna lie to you and say that everything that went into that big bounty of mine was bogus and undeserved; I've done a lot of bad stuff over the years, and I don't feel sorry about most of it. But still, a lot of what went into it was me just trying to live my life and people getting bent out of shape just because it didn't fit with how they want people to do things." Cassandra still couldn't completely grasp Eda's body language, but what she could decipher of it made it seem like that statement of hers was the truth.

"That's bad."

"Yep, real bad. Not gonna get anywhere dwelling on it, though, so let's get a move on." Eda patted Cassandra on the back a couple of times before exiting Warden Wrath's office. Cassandra followed close behind, her perspective on things switching a little in a way that she didn't completely disagree with.

"Ninety might be good," Cassandra muttered to herself. Eda yelled at her to pick up the pace, and Cassandra did just that while also scaling things back to about seventy-two.  


* * *

After a few minutes, Cassandra reunited with Luz and King as the latter two were heading down the hallway leading to King's crown; Cassandra felt a weight leave her shoulders when she saw that Luz wasn't hurt in any way. Luz recounted a sad tale of how she had encountered a group of prisoners who had been arrested for little more than the heinous crime of being kind of weird and how disappointed she was with herself for being unable to make the mechanism that controlled the doors to their cells budge in the slightest. Cassandra did what she could to tell her that she had nothing to be ashamed of, but it was obvious that even if she was better at articulation, her words would have only barely gotten through to her; Stephanie once told her that this kind of thing was called "projection", and seeing it up close and personal, Cassandra couldn't say that she was a fan of it.

As the group of four kept moving forward, they eventually came across a door labeled "Contraband" that King managed to open in his own bizarre way. As soon as they stepped through the doorway, Cassandra caught sight of a glowing pillar of light in the center of the room.

"The crown's behind that barrier, Luz. Grab it so we can get out of here," Eda said.

"On it!" Luz said as she rushed for the barrier. Normally, Cassandra would have stopped Luz and taken on the task herself in the likely event that it was dangerous, but she could tell from the sound of her voice that the idea of doing it was lifting her spirits a bit, so she let Luz do it while staying within arm's length out of precaution. Luz passed through the barrier without exploding into chunks of meat, so that was a good sign, and it was an even better sign when she stepped back through it, still not having exploded into chunks of meat.

"Wrong one." What wasn't a good sign, though, was Luz stepping out with something that couldn't possibly be the right crown.

"Cass, I looked all over that pile of junk, and this is the only thing that even resembles a crown," Luz said. The object in question did look like a crown, but instead of a real crown, it was nothing more than a paper crown, the kind you got to wear for having a birthday party at Big Belly Burger; personally, Cassandra preferred O'Shaughnessy's, but she knew she couldn't say that in front of Luz without setting her off.

"You got it! Yay!" In spite of Cassandra's reasonable doubts, King had no issue with taking the crown from Luz and placing it atop his head, and she would have repeated her concerns if the sight of him wasn't so adorable. "With this, my dominion over the mortal realm can start anew! You, Reynard, you shall be the first of my minions of chaos!" The one referred to as "Reynard" was a Jarro the Starfish Wonder—objectively the best Robin—plushie King had picked up after it fell outside of the barrier.

"Liar," Cassandra said to Eda while King obliviously ranted on to Reynard.

"Yeah, what's up, Eda? I don't know a thing about magic, but there's no way that thing is doing anything," Luz said.

"Okay, yes, all that stuff about King being an all-powerful demon lord is nothing but his own delusions," Eda said. "Still, us weirdos have to stick together, so if it'll make King happy, then it's not a big deal. I'm sure you know all about that, don't you, Cassandra?" Cassandra nodded her head.

"Wait, who's who in this scenario?" Luz asked. Cassandra said nothing in response. "Cass, who's who?" Once more, Cassandra said nothing. "Come on, Cass, who's who?" Even with Luz shaking her by the shoulders, Cassandra remained silent. There was no more noise from her until she let out a small yelp when Eda pushed her and Luz down to the ground, followed by a larger one she shared with Luz and King when Eda was suddenly decapitated by a fleshy, elongated axe; Cassandra knew that Eda was fine, but it was still an unpleasant sight, nonetheless.

"Two times in one day; not a good look for me. Well, at least I saw this one coming," Eda said, nearly making Luz drop her head to the floor.

"We meet at last, Eda the Owl Lady." The voice belonged to none other than Warden Wrath; Cassandra turned to see the fleshy axe decreasing in length and shifting back into an arm. As Warden Wrath stepped forward, a pair of guards ran out from behind him; not only did they grab Cassandra and Luz, but one of them stomped King into the floor; Cassandra didn't enjoy that. "I've been waiting a long time for this. For you to slip up and put yourself at my cruel mercy. For you to fall into my clutches and—"

Neither Cassandra nor Luz let Warden Wrath finish as they broke out of the guards' holds and took them down with a series of punches and kicks. King let out a gleeful yell as they fell over in a daze.

"Okay, I'll admit it. I did not see that coming," Warden Wrath said. "How and why could you two human brats do that? Are you a couple of those superhero things? No, you're both wearing your underwear properly, so it can't be that. At least I'm assuming you both are."

"Can't speak for Luz, but I know for a fact that the other one hasn't been half-naked for hours," Eda said as Luz put her head back on her body.

"Wasn't half," was all Cassandra had to say about that.

"Either way, let's just stop talking about it, please," Luz said, slipping into a fighting stance; her footing was a little off, but she corrected herself after seeing Cassandra do the proper one.

"So you're going to have children fight your battles for you? I never thought you could sink so low."

"If this is how low you think Eda can sink, then you don't know Eda, buddy!" King said.

"That's not _in_ accurate. Also, I wasn't planning on letting them do all the work, but it looks like they want to beat you up more than I do, so let's give them a minute," Eda said, picking up King as she stepped over to the back of the room.

"Hey, isn't this just like the time Wonder Girl and Vision Quetz teamed up to stop Doctor Psycho and Corrosive Man from sacrificing those starving orphans in a blood ritual?" Luz whispered. Cassandra nodded in response. "I knew it! This is so cool! Ah, if only one of us had one of Wonder Girl's Eighth Metal weapons to complete the illusion!" Cassandra nodded her head, once more.

["You can keep yammering once I throw you both in a cell!"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0Y5uKfJJqw) Warden Wrath's arms shifted into a myriad of tentacles that lashed out to ensnare them. The second she decided that she wanted to fight Warden Wrath, Cassandra knew that it wouldn't be a normal fight on account of the weird accent people on the Boiling Isles seemed to move with, and him being able to shapeshift to some degree meant that her eyes would be even less reliable.

Cassandra was more than just her eyes, however; if that was all she had, then her father never would have bothered doing anything with her, a hypothetical that probably wasn't as good as it sounded. Even if the opponent in front of her moved too bizarrely for her to get a good read on them, that hardly made her helpless, so when the tentacles came flying out, Cassandra had no difficulty bobbing and weaving her body through the onslaught, and she smiled when she saw that Luz also wasn't having a lot of difficulty dealing with the situation. It wasn't long until the two of them were in front of Warden Wrath, and with perfect unison, the two of them punched him in the stomach. She could hear the wind being knocked out of him, but he stood his ground and recalled his tentacles, quickly shifting them back into arms that swiped at the two of them, but failed to make contact on account of the two of them jumping up into the air. While airborne, Cassandra grabbed Luz's arm and threw her headfirst into Warden Wrath's face, the impact of the attack both making him stumble a bit and making his mask fall off, exposing a face with tiny eyes and a toothy mouth that was breathing fire.

"Gross," was all Cassandra had to say about that as the two of them touched down. Warden Wrath shot fire at them that forced them away from him. His body twisted around to send the fire in whatever direction they ran in, making it hard for them to get close. Cassandra was seconds away from just running in before Luz shouted, "Eat this, sucker!" and threw the firework that helped start their whole mess at his mouth like a baseball. The second contact was made, Warden Wrath was engulfed in a fiery explosion and the walls were lit up with sparkling lights of various shapes, sizes, and colors; in the background of it all, Cassandra could pick out King cheering at how the move was as pretty as it was violent.

_It's a good thing we're in a big room_ , Cassandra thought.

"See, Cass? I _told_ you it was a good idea! I think you and Mom owe me an apology when we get home—Whoa!" Luz's unwarranted smugness was interrupted when an elongated hand stretched out of the smoke and lifted her up off the ground. Sure enough, Warden Wrath was bleeding and heavily singed, but he was still standing, nonetheless. He was still standing, and he had both an axe to Luz's throat and a mouth pointed at her ready to spew flames.

All of that was more than enough to make Cassandra angry beyond belief, and as such, she didn't even hear whatever sort of inane speech Warden Wrath was giving as she charged over to him. Right before he could shoot out his fire, Cassandra dropped down and leaped up with a manji kick that slammed his jaw shut and, judging by the smoke leaking out of his teeth and the way he was screaming, caused his fire to bounce back right inside of him. With that, Luz was able to break free of his grip, which was immediately followed by her grabbing his elongated arm and flipping him hard onto his back.

" _Hundan_ ," Cassandra spat while Luz cheered for their victory; it didn't take long for her to join Luz, of course.

"You filthy, rotten humans!" Much to the surprise of both of them, Warden Wrath was able to stand after all of that, even if his posture was wobbly and his breath haggard. "This is my prison, and I refuse to go down here! Until I kill you all, until I make the Owl Lady mine, I refuse to—"

"And that's one minute." By the time Cassandra turned her head, Eda had already jumped at Warden Wrath with incredible speed and hit him in the face with her staff. Warden Wrath was knocked down once more, and Cassandra could tell that it was finally going to stick. "You two sure did a number on this—What'd you call him?"

" _Hundan_ ," Cassandra said.

"Yeah, that. I like that word; don't know what it means, but I'm gonna see if I can put it in my vocabulary. Anyway, nice job giving this clown what for, now let's get out of here before some guards decide to actually do their job."

"Before we do, can we go break out those prisoners I was talking about before?" Luz asked. Eda wasted no time in agreeing to that, and when Luz promised Cassandra that they were good people who didn't need to be locked up, she agreed to it, as well.

The act of a prison break headed by a wanted criminal still didn't sit completely well with her, but she told herself that it was something Batman would do if push came to shove, and that made it go down a little easier.  


* * *

With the unjustly incarcerated freed and the Big Belly Burger crown secured, the four of them returned to the Owl House no significantly less for wear than they were when they left. Once inside, Eda summoned up her portal and gave Cassandra and Luz the go-ahead to go back home; it was hardly the worst day of Cassandra's life, but she was happy for it to be over, regardless.

"You know, even though today was filled with monsters and more decapitations than a girl my age should see, or anyone of any age, really, this was still one of the best days of my life." The day was being ruined a little more, however, when Luz started giving some sort of speech when she should have been going home. "I don't fit in at home, you guys don't fit in here, but if I stay, we can not fit in—"

"No," Cassandra interjected; she grabbed Luz's wrist and tried to pull her through the portal, but Luz managed to break free of her grip.

"Cass, please! Staying here would be so much more fun than that dumb summer camp, and you know it!" Luz said.

"No."

"I could become a witch, maybe! Imagine if I could hit someone with a manji kick and then shoot a fireball out of that same foot. Wouldn't that be cool?"

"Yes, but still no."

"Come on, let your sister stay. I wanna learn how to vanquish my enemies with the flick of a finger," King said.

""No!"" Cassandra and Luz said in unison.

"So should I leave until you sort this out, or something?" Eda asked.

"Yes," Cassandra said.

"No, stay!" Luz said. "Eda's part of the problem, isn't she? I know we got off on the wrong foot, but you know she's not a bad—Well, you know that she's not evil. She stopped you from getting beheaded, remember? She couldn't do that if she was evil." Cassandra didn't like how Eda just shrugged her shoulders at that, but she had to admit that Luz had a point about Eda most likely not being a terrible person.

"Don't lie to Mom." Cassandra didn't enjoy seeing Luz look distraught, but something like that needed to be said to fully squash the bad idea, so she would live with it.

"I know lying to Mom isn't right, and I know that she'd be mad, and sad, probably more sad than mad, if she ever found out about it, but this isn't about what Mom thinks I should be doing, it's about what I _know_ I should be doing, and I know that this is it, so I'm staying!" Luz stomped on the floor and glared at Cassandra for a second before gaining a more nervous expression. "Please?" For the second time that day, Luz was staring at her with the kind of big eyes she always wore when she wanted Cassandra to concede to her, only this time, there was a stronger sense of conviction to be found in them.

"Okay." It made it even harder for Cassandra to try and turn her down, but with the way Luz was hugging her, she didn't seem to mind.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you!"

"On one condition." Luz agreed to that, and Cassandra gave her condition.  
~~~  
"I'm sorry."

"Cass, stop apologizing. You're giving up your summer to help your sister, and I'd have to be a real jerk to get mad at you for that."

"You're not a jerk."

"Exactly, so I'm not mad! Besides, an extra three months of buildup will just make our next meetup all the more fantastic. I've either already got goosebumps or the heat's on the fritz for the fourth time this week. Probably both. What am I even paying Mr. Borgman for, anyway?"

"Put on my sweater."

"Don't have to tell me twice. Okay, I'm hanging out with Martha tomorrow, so I gotta go to bed. Love you, have fun with LuLu, bye!"

"Love you, too." Cassandra and Stephanie traded "I love yous" one more time before Cassandra hung up and fell back on Eda's couch, which would apparently serve as her bed for the next few months.

As much as Cassandra wanted to believe that Luz could handle herself, leaving her sister alone in an alternate dimension for three months was out of the question, so she only allowed it under the condition that Cassandra also spend the summer on the Boiling Isles to keep an eye on her. Luz objected to the idea of having a babysitter, but that thought was quickly abandoned when she started going on about how they could both become witches and use their new powers to join a superhero team like the Teen Titans or Young Justice or the Super Young Team; Cassandra didn't know about becoming a witch, but something like that could be fun, she had to admit. More to the point, part of that meant that she had to lie to Stephanie and tell her that she was dropping her trip to Gotham to spend the summer with Luz at her camp, so at the very least, she couldn't criticize Luz for being a liar.

As Cassandra ruminated on that, Eda walked over and made a red blanket appear in the air and drop onto her legs.

"It's made of fire rat fur, so you probably won't get cold sleeping with it; your sister's got one, too," Eda said. Cassandra rubbed her fingers around the blanket and felt impressed with how warm it was; it was a true marvel of a blanket. "You're welcome, by the way."

"Sorry. Thank you. For earlier, too."

"Hey, don't mention it. I'm sure you'd do the same if you had a body like mine." Cassandra didn't say anything. "Eh, we'll get there eventually. Get some sleep, 'cause we got a big day ahead of us tomorrow." Cassandra nodded and Eda climbed up the stairs of the Owl House, quickly making herself unseen.

"One-hundred and ten degrees."

"Aw, you're warming up to her!" Cassandra sat up, but she didn't need to do that to know that Luz was right there. "Just got finished telling Mom that I'm all set up at camp. Didn't feel all that good, but I can't back out now, right?"

"Wrong." Luz let out a sigh before Cassandra reached over and patted her head. "But don't. You want this, so it's a good thing."

"You really think so?" Cassandra nodded her head and Luz hugged her with a smile.

"Go to bed."

"Yep. Gonna work on that WonderQuetz fic some more and then it's off to bed. See you in the morning, Cass."

" _Te quiero_."

["Wo ai ni."](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=viDKam_hmGM) Luz hugged her one last time before running back into the closet that had been turned into her makeshift room; if they were really going to spend the whole summer here, then she'd like to find a way to do something about that sooner, rather than later.

The best relief Cassandra found herself feeling was that even after all of that, she was still able to have the same kind of peaceful sleep that living with her family had afforded her. So long as she had that, everything would be okay.

* * *

**Rough timeline of various events:**

**1941: The Justice Society is founded to combat the ever-growing magical and scientific forces of the Axis Powers. Among their members is a reincarnation of Hawkgirl who claims to hail from another dimension.**

**1945: World War II ends with the Japanese's surrender after a nuclear bomb is dropped on Nagasaki. There are rumors that the United States only had access to one nuclear bomb and actually hit Nagasaki with something else, but those rumors are most likely just conspiracy theory nonsense.**

**1950s: The Justice Society is disbanded due to all active members becoming lost in time in order to stop Adolf Hitler from enacting Ragnarok.**

**1960s: The Helmet of Chaos, source of power for Doctor Chaos, disappears from the face of the Earth.**

**1980s: The Justice Society returns to our plane of existence and its members to varying degrees of activity.**

**1990s: The Justice League is formed after Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern II, The Flash II, Aquaman, and the Martian Manhunter team up to defeat Starro the Conqueror who, as we all know, would go on to become America's darling, Jarro the Starfish Wonder.**

**Eighteen years prior: Genius, billionaire, ex-playboy philanthropist Bruce Wayne marries government agent and feminist icon Diana Prince.**

**Seventeen years prior: Cassandra Cain is born.**

**Sixteen years prior: Damian Wayne is born.**

**Fifteen years prior: Luz Noceda is born.***

**Thirteen years prior: Martha Wayne II is born.**

**Nine years prior: Cassandra Cain goes to Macau and commits her first murder by killing a bookie named Faizul. Immediately after, she quits the life of an assassin and leaves her father to become a vagabond.**

**Six years prior: Three separate events happen: Bruce Wayne's illegitimate child Damian Wayne arrives in Gotham; Batman gets a new Robin, the previous one taking on the identity of Red Robin—some sources say that he tried to call himself "Drake" before being talked out of it on account of it being "stupid", for some reason; while driving home from the midnight release of the newest book in the** _**Good Witch Azura** _ **series, the Noceda family find a young Cassandra Cain collapsed on the side of the road, starving and exhausted.**

**Five years prior: Jarro is born, and all is right with the world.**

**Four years prior: Batman gains two new sidekicks: the first Wonder Girl—rumored to be the daughter of Batman and Wonder Woman—since the previous one started going by Diespiter, and Jarro the Starfish Wonder, which made everyone's year all the more better. In the same year, the school that Luz Noceda and Cassandra Cain attend took a field trip to Gotham City where they met and befriended Stephanie Brown.**

**Three years prior: Stephanie Brown starts working as Bruce Wayne's assistant roughly around the same time that Spoiler makes her debut. In the same year, Stephanie Brown and Cassandra Cain begin a long-distance relationship.**

**Two years prior: Yara Flor finishes her self-imposed training and travels to America to become the next Wonder Girl, completely unaware that the role had been fulfilled for two years. Yara Flor quickly develops a rivalry with Wonder Girl and becomes Vision Quetz, a name she isn't very happy with because she's far removed from Mesoamerican culture, but none of her efforts to create a new identity have succeeded.**

**Current year: Current events.**

***In case anyone's confused by this, comments from Dana Terrace suggest that Luz's fifteenth birthday will happen late into the summer.**


End file.
